On-page SEO has a reputation problem. Half the advice online is folklore; the other half is 2012 tactics that Google has punished for a decade. What's left is a short list of things that have quietly survived every update — and that list is shorter than you'd think.
Before you write a word
Decide what the page is for. One page, one primary intent. If your article answers "how much does a passport cost" and "how to renew a passport," that's two pages wearing one URL. Split them. Google is better than ever at matching intent to format, and a confused page ranks for nothing well.
The checklist itself
Title tag: primary keyword near the front, under roughly 60 characters, and written for a human scrolling fast. Not stuffed — written. H1: one per page, consistent with the title, no exotic formatting. First paragraph: answer the question in the first 100 words. Readers bounce when they have to scroll for the point; so do rankings.
Subheadings: real structure, not decoration. If someone reads only your H2s, they should get the skeleton of the answer. Images: compressed, lazy-loaded, descriptive alt text, and filenames that aren't IMG_4821.jpg. Internal links: two to five links to related pages with anchors that describe the destination. No "click here".
URL: short, hyphenated, readable aloud. Meta description: doesn't affect ranking directly, but it is your ad copy on the results page — write it like one. Freshness: update the page when the facts change and keep the date honest.
What to deliberately skip
Keyword density targets. Exact-match anchors everywhere. LSI keyword stuffing (whatever that means this week). Bolded keywords in every paragraph. None of it has moved the needle in years, and some of it reads as spam to the only audience that matters — actual people with money and patience.
Fifteen minutes, one checklist, every page. Boring? Completely. Effective? Ask your analytics in eight weeks.
